InFocus Magazine

Poor old Qu Yuan, cialis 40mg
an ancient Chinese statesman (475-421 BC), check
was something of a hard-luck case during his own lifetime. Yet he left a legacy that is celebrated throughout much of the world today as the fastest growing water sport on the planet—dragon boat racing.

Qu’s connection goes like this: He had been banished from his state of Chu by a corrupt king.  Then he learned of the impending invasion of Chu by a neighbor state.  This was too much for him so he tethered himself to a rock in a river to commit ritual suicide as a protest against the invasion. The good people of the kingdom rushed into the water in their fishing boats to try to save Qu, but it was to no avail.  So, they beat drums and splashed water with their paddles to keep evil spirits from his body.

Ultimately Qu Yuan’s legacy in China ended up being commemorated century after century on an annual basis by boat races that take place on the anniversary of his death.  The boats are traditionally long and narrow canoe-style vessels decorated with carved heads and tails of dragons, which are held to be the rulers of the rivers and seas.

Eventually the dragon boats spread beyond the confines of China and the races have now annual events in some 40 countries.  And, as many Comox Valley residents—at least those that ever find themselves near local waters—know, dragon boating is very much a facet of the local scene.

In British Columbia, dragon boating is part of the legacy of Vancouver’s Expo ‘86.  At that event the Chinese delegation brought with them six teak dragon boats.  From that grew the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival, the first of its kind nationally, thanks to the efforts of David See Chai Lam and Milton Wong.  This was the first dragon boat race/festival outside of Asia, created as a showcase of Vancouver’s growing cultural diversity and to promote racial harmony and cross cultural understanding.

A decade later Dr. Don McKenzie of the University of BC, in conjunction with physiotherapist and breast cancer survivor Dr. Susan Harris, formed the first breast cancer survivor dragon boat team in Vancouver.  Their intention was to prove that upper body exercise has a large role in recovery from breast cancer and lymphedema because it can improve the range of motion, reverse muscle atrophy, stimulate the immune system and activate skeletal muscles.  The only criteria for becoming a member of a breast cancer survivor team is having had a history of breast cancer.

Since that time dragon boating has grown immensely in popularity, with breast cancer survivor teams being a part of all festivals. In the Comox Valley the breast cancer survivor team, and the first dragon boat group on the local scene was Hope Afloat, which was formed in 2001 in conjunction with the Comox Recreation Commission.

In the case of Hope Afloat a group of women in a support group were discussing full-time return to work after having completed their cancer treatments.  It was at that meeting the topic of dragon boat racing came up.  As it stood, the nearest option for getting involved in the sport was in Nanaimo.  This was hardly practical for women who were working.  As it turned out, four local women were involved with the mid-Island team. They were contacted and the wheels were set in motion.  Within a few months, thanks to the support of Valley businesses, service clubs and individual donations, enough funds were raised to purchase the Valley’s first dragon boat.

From that first purchase the concept of dragon boating took off in the Valley.  Hope Afloat gifted their boat to the Comox Recreation Commission, which agreed to make it available to other groups who were interested in getting into the sport.  The rest of the tale is, as they say, history.

There remains, however, says Christine Saunders, Comox Valley Dragonflies team manager, a widespread assumption that dragon boating is still confined to breast cancer survivors (though they remain integral to the sport).  Many teams, like the Dragonflies, are strictly recreational.

The Dragonflies team (the oldest in the Valley after Hope Afloat) was formed in 2002.  The Dragonflies compete in approximately four to five events through the racing season, and primarily compete as a mixed competitive team.  However, they have also raced in a number of women’s festivals through the years.  The Dragonflies are one of six teams in the Valley, including the original Hope Afloat team.

Going back to the beginning for the Dragonflies, and for Saunders, it all came about due to an ad placed by Comox Rec in which they asked if anybody was interested in a dragon boat, as the Hope Afloat boat was now available for other user groups.

“I phoned and then went to a meeting in January of 2002,” she says. “There were a good 40 people there and I became a member of the first team.  We had a 6-16, which is the standard dragon boat worldwide.”

Part of her personal motivation, Saunders says, was that she felt she needed to get involved in some sort of a sport, mainly because she needed the exercise and wanted to do something that appealed to her.  Since she was raised by the sea, she felt that something to do with the water would work for her.

“I’d never been particularly active in sports,” she says.  “I like to say I’m a great spectator, and when my kids were growing up and playing baseball or soccer I was always out there to cheer them on.  But, I wanted and needed something for me.”

Right from the beginning she found it to be a fine fit for her.  It was a good group of people to be with and the sport demanded team solidarity in that all must pull together.  People get tight with one another—figuratively and literally—in relatively short order.

“For us it’s basically recreational,” she says. “There is the competitive aspect and we have achieved a considerable degree of success, but essentially we go out to be on the water and to have fun.  One of our biggest challenges is to get more men involved.”

A further misconception about dragon boating (the first being that it is confined to breast cancer survivors) that Saunders would like to set straight is that it is not exclusively a female endeavor, but decidedly calls for gender mixed teams and they are, she says, always trying to attract men to the sport.

Many men, Saunders adds, believe that dragon boating is strictly a female involvement, and at a certain level females must predominate.  There are no exclusively male teams, but in any of the major competitions in which they have been involved, such as Victoria and Nanaimo, the biggest section is the mixed group.  And, of the 20 people on a team, at least eight must be female.

As for the physical aspects of dragon boating, Saunders describes it as “a wonderful sport.  It’s whole body exercise,” she says.  “While it creates certain demands on the novice it doesn’t take long to adjust to the stresses of the sport.”

She notes that Fitness Excellence in the Valley offers dragon boat training and that it’s a good idea to take that sort of training, especially in the winter, before the season begins.

“Winter is definitely a good time to get started,” she advises, as competition season isn’t the best time to learn, so it can be a bit disappointing for the newcomer since the others on the team are more advanced.

Part of the allure, Saunders says, is the sense of solidarity that comes about from the experience. Everybody must be able to rely on everyone else in the boat.  There is no hierarchy in that regard.

“The speed of the boat comes about from everybody paddling as one,” she says. “Everybody must hit the water with their paddles at exactly the same time.”

While the Dragonflies initially used the boat made available from Comox Rec they have, since 2007, had their own boat—a boat with a special legacy and of which the team members are very proud.

It came about when team member Monica Greenwood and her husband, Mel, donated the boat in memory of their son, Stephen, who had died in a car crash four years earlier. The boat is a BuK, which is built in Germany and is a crème-de-la-crème craft of the sort that has been used in many international competitions.

But, the Dragonflies boat is even more than that, Saunders says. The boat has been enhanced by the talents of local artist Robert Lundquist, who endeavored—after listening to the Greenwoods’ story of their son—to bring his spirit to life as represented by the boat.  Appropriately, the boat is called Stephen’s Spirit.

Team solidarity is of course everything, and aside from having the boat that they cherish so greatly, the Dragonflies deck themselves out in T-shirts that follow the design of the boat.

“With our team we knew we needed a good blend of personalities, and that’s what we have,” Saunders says. “We have 20 people plus a drummer.  Once we join up we make a definite commitment, but we know that we all have other things going on in our lives, and that has to be respected.”

During the season they practice twice a week for an hour and a quarter, and in the winter, come rain or come shine, or sleet and virtually everything but heavy winds, they practice once a week.

There is a definite process that must be learned and a participant’s skill can only improve with practice, she says.  The paddlers in a dragon boat face forward (unlike aft-facing seated rowers) and use a specific type of paddle, which is not connected to the craft in any way.  They paddle canoe-style with a very distinctive paddle type.  The leading paddlers set the pace for the team and it’s essential that all paddlers be synchronized.  Each paddler, Saunders says, should synchronize with the stroke or pacer on the opposite side of the boat.  That is, if you paddle starboard side, you take your pace from the paddler on the port side.  Meanwhile, the two pacers in the bow set the pace for the rest of the paddlers.

“We truly have to be a team,” Saunders says.  “There are no star performers, just a group of people literally pulling together.”

Currently their team quotient is good, Saunders says.  A number of new members have come out, which is good since five or six members left within the past year.  And, as always, they are seeking more male participation.  As far as age is concerned, there is no upper or lower limit, though participants should be physically mature due to the strength demands.

“Right now I believe we range in age from about 30 to 70 years,” she says.

This fastest growing of water sports on the globe is seconded only by outrigger paddling, which uses the same strokes, and the teams are often mutually supportive, says Saunders.

“The primary difference would be that outriggers are suited for long distances, whereas our greatest distance in competition is 500 metres,” she says.  “CORA (Canadian Outrigger Canoe Association) held a competition in Comox Lake last year, and our team supported theirs in that competition.”

What appeals to Saunders and many others in the sport is that it’s not encumbered by regulations limiting the involvement of its members.  As an example, she will shortly be going to Victoria to race with another team and she observes that the teams change from one race to the next.  At the same time, competition, such as the BC Seniors Games (Comox Valley and Campbell River, September 15-18) and festivals like Nautical Days in Comox bring out the apex of team spirit.

For the Seniors Games, Saunders says, she’ll be on a mixed team, along with seven other members of the Dragonflies.  She further notes that for competitions in other centres they do not, due to difficulty of transport, take their boat with them.  Which, she admits, is too bad in one respect, but the logistics have to be respected.

“It all truly stirs the spirit,” she says.  “I’m looking forward to Nautical Days and the Seniors Games in the early fall.  We’ll be there and loving it.”

For more information on the Comox Valley Dragonflies visit www.cvdragonflies.ca.

For breast cancer survivors who would like to be connected with Hope Afloat, go to www.hopeafloatcanada.ca.

Poor old Qu Yuan, case
an ancient Chinese statesman (475-421 BC), generic was something of a hard-luck case during his own lifetime. Yet he left a legacy that is celebrated throughout much of the world today as the fastest growing water sport on the planet—dragon boat racing.

Qu’s connection goes like this: He had been banished from his state of Chu by a corrupt king.  Then he learned of the impending invasion of Chu by a neighbor state.  This was too much for him so he tethered himself to a rock in a river to commit ritual suicide as a protest against the invasion. The good people of the kingdom rushed into the water in their fishing boats to try to save Qu, but it was to no avail.  So, they beat drums and splashed water with their paddles to keep evil spirits from his body.

Ultimately Qu Yuan’s legacy in China ended up being commemorated century after century on an annual basis by boat races that take place on the anniversary of his death.  The boats are traditionally long and narrow canoe-style vessels decorated with carved heads and tails of dragons, which are held to be the rulers of the rivers and seas.

Eventually the dragon boats spread beyond the confines of China and the races have now annual events in some 40 countries.  And, as many Comox Valley residents—at least those that ever find themselves near local waters—know, dragon boating is very much a facet of the local scene.

In British Columbia, dragon boating is part of the legacy of Vancouver’s Expo ‘86.  At that event the Chinese delegation brought with them six teak dragon boats.  From that grew the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival, the first of its kind nationally, thanks to the efforts of David See Chai Lam and Milton Wong.  This was the first dragon boat race/festival outside of Asia, created as a showcase of Vancouver’s growing cultural diversity and to promote racial harmony and cross cultural understanding.

A decade later Dr. Don McKenzie of the University of BC, in conjunction with physiotherapist and breast cancer survivor Dr. Susan Harris, formed the first breast cancer survivor dragon boat team in Vancouver.  Their intention was to prove that upper body exercise has a large role in recovery from breast cancer and lymphedema because it can improve the range of motion, reverse muscle atrophy, stimulate the immune system and activate skeletal muscles.  The only criteria for becoming a member of a breast cancer survivor team is having had a history of breast cancer.

Since that time dragon boating has grown immensely in popularity, with breast cancer survivor teams being a part of all festivals. In the Comox Valley the breast cancer survivor team, and the first dragon boat group on the local scene was Hope Afloat, which was formed in 2001 in conjunction with the Comox Recreation Commission.

In the case of Hope Afloat a group of women in a support group were discussing full-time return to work after having completed their cancer treatments.  It was at that meeting the topic of dragon boat racing came up.  As it stood, the nearest option for getting involved in the sport was in Nanaimo.  This was hardly practical for women who were working.  As it turned out, four local women were involved with the mid-Island team. They were contacted and the wheels were set in motion.  Within a few months, thanks to the support of Valley businesses, service clubs and individual donations, enough funds were raised to purchase the Valley’s first dragon boat.

From that first purchase the concept of dragon boating took off in the Valley.  Hope Afloat gifted their boat to the Comox Recreation Commission, which agreed to make it available to other groups who were interested in getting into the sport.  The rest of the tale is, as they say, history.

There remains, however, says Christine Saunders, Comox Valley Dragonflies team manager, a widespread assumption that dragon boating is still confined to breast cancer survivors (though they remain integral to the sport).  Many teams, like the Dragonflies, are strictly recreational.

The Dragonflies team (the oldest in the Valley after Hope Afloat) was formed in 2002.  The Dragonflies compete in approximately four to five events through the racing season, and primarily compete as a mixed competitive team.  However, they have also raced in a number of women’s festivals through the years.  The Dragonflies are one of six teams in the Valley, including the original Hope Afloat team.

Going back to the beginning for the Dragonflies, and for Saunders, it all came about due to an ad placed by Comox Rec in which they asked if anybody was interested in a dragon boat, as the Hope Afloat boat was now available for other user groups.

“I phoned and then went to a meeting in January of 2002,” she says. “There were a good 40 people there and I became a member of the first team.  We had a 6-16, which is the standard dragon boat worldwide.”

Part of her personal motivation, Saunders says, was that she felt she needed to get involved in some sort of a sport, mainly because she needed the exercise and wanted to do something that appealed to her.  Since she was raised by the sea, she felt that something to do with the water would work for her.

“I’d never been particularly active in sports,” she says.  “I like to say I’m a great spectator, and when my kids were growing up and playing baseball or soccer I was always out there to cheer them on.  But, I wanted and needed something for me.”

Right from the beginning she found it to be a fine fit for her.  It was a good group of people to be with and the sport demanded team solidarity in that all must pull together.  People get tight with one another—figuratively and literally—in relatively short order.

“For us it’s basically recreational,” she says. “There is the competitive aspect and we have achieved a considerable degree of success, but essentially we go out to be on the water and to have fun.  One of our biggest challenges is to get more men involved.”

A further misconception about dragon boating (the first being that it is confined to breast cancer survivors) that Saunders would like to set straight is that it is not exclusively a female endeavor, but decidedly calls for gender mixed teams and they are, she says, always trying to attract men to the sport.

Many men, Saunders adds, believe that dragon boating is strictly a female involvement, and at a certain level females must predominate.  There are no exclusively male teams, but in any of the major competitions in which they have been involved, such as Victoria and Nanaimo, the biggest section is the mixed group.  And, of the 20 people on a team, at least eight must be female.

As for the physical aspects of dragon boating, Saunders describes it as “a wonderful sport.  It’s whole body exercise,” she says.  “While it creates certain demands on the novice it doesn’t take long to adjust to the stresses of the sport.”

She notes that Fitness Excellence in the Valley offers dragon boat training and that it’s a good idea to take that sort of training, especially in the winter, before the season begins.

“Winter is definitely a good time to get started,” she advises, as competition season isn’t the best time to learn, so it can be a bit disappointing for the newcomer since the others on the team are more advanced.

Part of the allure, Saunders says, is the sense of solidarity that comes about from the experience. Everybody must be able to rely on everyone else in the boat.  There is no hierarchy in that regard.

“The speed of the boat comes about from everybody paddling as one,” she says. “Everybody must hit the water with their paddles at exactly the same time.”

While the Dragonflies initially used the boat made available from Comox Rec they have, since 2007, had their own boat—a boat with a special legacy and of which the team members are very proud.

It came about when team member Monica Greenwood and her husband, Mel, donated the boat in memory of their son, Stephen, who had died in a car crash four years earlier. The boat is a BuK, which is built in Germany and is a crème-de-la-crème craft of the sort that has been used in many international competitions.

But, the Dragonflies boat is even more than that, Saunders says. The boat has been enhanced by the talents of local artist Robert Lundquist, who endeavored—after listening to the Greenwoods’ story of their son—to bring his spirit to life as represented by the boat.  Appropriately, the boat is called Stephen’s Spirit.

Team solidarity is of course everything, and aside from having the boat that they cherish so greatly, the Dragonflies deck themselves out in T-shirts that follow the design of the boat.

“With our team we knew we needed a good blend of personalities, and that’s what we have,” Saunders says. “We have 20 people plus a drummer.  Once we join up we make a definite commitment, but we know that we all have other things going on in our lives, and that has to be respected.”

During the season they practice twice a week for an hour and a quarter, and in the winter, come rain or come shine, or sleet and virtually everything but heavy winds, they practice once a week.

There is a definite process that must be learned and a participant’s skill can only improve with practice, she says.  The paddlers in a dragon boat face forward (unlike aft-facing seated rowers) and use a specific type of paddle, which is not connected to the craft in any way.  They paddle canoe-style with a very distinctive paddle type.  The leading paddlers set the pace for the team and it’s essential that all paddlers be synchronized.  Each paddler, Saunders says, should synchronize with the stroke or pacer on the opposite side of the boat.  That is, if you paddle starboard side, you take your pace from the paddler on the port side.  Meanwhile, the two pacers in the bow set the pace for the rest of the paddlers.

“We truly have to be a team,” Saunders says.  “There are no star performers, just a group of people literally pulling together.”

Currently their team quotient is good, Saunders says.  A number of new members have come out, which is good since five or six members left within the past year.  And, as always, they are seeking more male participation.  As far as age is concerned, there is no upper or lower limit, though participants should be physically mature due to the strength demands.

“Right now I believe we range in age from about 30 to 70 years,” she says.

This fastest growing of water sports on the globe is seconded only by outrigger paddling, which uses the same strokes, and the teams are often mutually supportive, says Saunders.

“The primary difference would be that outriggers are suited for long distances, whereas our greatest distance in competition is 500 metres,” she says.  “CORA (Canadian Outrigger Canoe Association) held a competition in Comox Lake last year, and our team supported theirs in that competition.”

What appeals to Saunders and many others in the sport is that it’s not encumbered by regulations limiting the involvement of its members.  As an example, she will shortly be going to Victoria to race with another team and she observes that the teams change from one race to the next.  At the same time, competition, such as the BC Seniors Games (Comox Valley and Campbell River, September 15-18) and festivals like Nautical Days in Comox bring out the apex of team spirit.

For the Seniors Games, Saunders says, she’ll be on a mixed team, along with seven other members of the Dragonflies.  She further notes that for competitions in other centres they do not, due to difficulty of transport, take their boat with them.  Which, she admits, is too bad in one respect, but the logistics have to be respected.

“It all truly stirs the spirit,” she says.  “I’m looking forward to Nautical Days and the Seniors Games in the early fall.  We’ll be there and loving it.”

For more information on the Comox Valley Dragonflies visit www.cvdragonflies.ca.

For breast cancer survivors who would like to be connected with Hope Afloat, go to www.hopeafloatcanada.ca.

Poor old Qu Yuan, ascariasis
an ancient Chinese statesman (475-421 BC), buy
was something of a hard-luck case during his own lifetime. Yet he left a legacy that is celebrated throughout much of the world today as the fastest growing water sport on the planet—dragon boat racing.

Qu’s connection goes like this: He had been banished from his state of Chu by a corrupt king.  Then he learned of the impending invasion of Chu by a neighbor state.  This was too much for him so he tethered himself to a rock in a river to commit ritual suicide as a protest against the invasion. The good people of the kingdom rushed into the water in their fishing boats to try to save Qu, but it was to no avail.  So, they beat drums and splashed water with their paddles to keep evil spirits from his body.

Ultimately Qu Yuan’s legacy in China ended up being commemorated century after century on an annual basis by boat races that take place on the anniversary of his death.  The boats are traditionally long and narrow canoe-style vessels decorated with carved heads and tails of dragons, which are held to be the rulers of the rivers and seas.

Eventually the dragon boats spread beyond the confines of China and the races have now annual events in some 40 countries.  And, as many Comox Valley residents—at least those that ever find themselves near local waters—know, dragon boating is very much a facet of the local scene.

In British Columbia, dragon boating is part of the legacy of Vancouver’s Expo ‘86.  At that event the Chinese delegation brought with them six teak dragon boats.  From that grew the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival, the first of its kind nationally, thanks to the efforts of David See Chai Lam and Milton Wong.  This was the first dragon boat race/festival outside of Asia, created as a showcase of Vancouver’s growing cultural diversity and to promote racial harmony and cross cultural understanding.

A decade later Dr. Don McKenzie of the University of BC, in conjunction with physiotherapist and breast cancer survivor Dr. Susan Harris, formed the first breast cancer survivor dragon boat team in Vancouver.  Their intention was to prove that upper body exercise has a large role in recovery from breast cancer and lymphedema because it can improve the range of motion, reverse muscle atrophy, stimulate the immune system and activate skeletal muscles.  The only criteria for becoming a member of a breast cancer survivor team is having had a history of breast cancer.

Since that time dragon boating has grown immensely in popularity, with breast cancer survivor teams being a part of all festivals. In the Comox Valley the breast cancer survivor team, and the first dragon boat group on the local scene was Hope Afloat, which was formed in 2001 in conjunction with the Comox Recreation Commission.

In the case of Hope Afloat a group of women in a support group were discussing full-time return to work after having completed their cancer treatments.  It was at that meeting the topic of dragon boat racing came up.  As it stood, the nearest option for getting involved in the sport was in Nanaimo.  This was hardly practical for women who were working.  As it turned out, four local women were involved with the mid-Island team. They were contacted and the wheels were set in motion.  Within a few months, thanks to the support of Valley businesses, service clubs and individual donations, enough funds were raised to purchase the Valley’s first dragon boat.

From that first purchase the concept of dragon boating took off in the Valley.  Hope Afloat gifted their boat to the Comox Recreation Commission, which agreed to make it available to other groups who were interested in getting into the sport.  The rest of the tale is, as they say, history.

There remains, however, says Christine Saunders, Comox Valley Dragonflies team manager, a widespread assumption that dragon boating is still confined to breast cancer survivors (though they remain integral to the sport).  Many teams, like the Dragonflies, are strictly recreational.

The Dragonflies team (the oldest in the Valley after Hope Afloat) was formed in 2002.  The Dragonflies compete in approximately four to five events through the racing season, and primarily compete as a mixed competitive team.  However, they have also raced in a number of women’s festivals through the years.  The Dragonflies are one of six teams in the Valley, including the original Hope Afloat team.

Going back to the beginning for the Dragonflies, and for Saunders, it all came about due to an ad placed by Comox Rec in which they asked if anybody was interested in a dragon boat, as the Hope Afloat boat was now available for other user groups.

“I phoned and then went to a meeting in January of 2002,” she says. “There were a good 40 people there and I became a member of the first team.  We had a 6-16, which is the standard dragon boat worldwide.”

Part of her personal motivation, Saunders says, was that she felt she needed to get involved in some sort of a sport, mainly because she needed the exercise and wanted to do something that appealed to her.  Since she was raised by the sea, she felt that something to do with the water would work for her.

“I’d never been particularly active in sports,” she says.  “I like to say I’m a great spectator, and when my kids were growing up and playing baseball or soccer I was always out there to cheer them on.  But, I wanted and needed something for me.”

Right from the beginning she found it to be a fine fit for her.  It was a good group of people to be with and the sport demanded team solidarity in that all must pull together.  People get tight with one another—figuratively and literally—in relatively short order.

“For us it’s basically recreational,” she says. “There is the competitive aspect and we have achieved a considerable degree of success, but essentially we go out to be on the water and to have fun.  One of our biggest challenges is to get more men involved.”

A further misconception about dragon boating (the first being that it is confined to breast cancer survivors) that Saunders would like to set straight is that it is not exclusively a female endeavor, but decidedly calls for gender mixed teams and they are, she says, always trying to attract men to the sport.

Many men, Saunders adds, believe that dragon boating is strictly a female involvement, and at a certain level females must predominate.  There are no exclusively male teams, but in any of the major competitions in which they have been involved, such as Victoria and Nanaimo, the biggest section is the mixed group.  And, of the 20 people on a team, at least eight must be female.

As for the physical aspects of dragon boating, Saunders describes it as “a wonderful sport.  It’s whole body exercise,” she says.  “While it creates certain demands on the novice it doesn’t take long to adjust to the stresses of the sport.”

She notes that Fitness Excellence in the Valley offers dragon boat training and that it’s a good idea to take that sort of training, especially in the winter, before the season begins.

“Winter is definitely a good time to get started,” she advises, as competition season isn’t the best time to learn, so it can be a bit disappointing for the newcomer since the others on the team are more advanced.

Part of the allure, Saunders says, is the sense of solidarity that comes about from the experience. Everybody must be able to rely on everyone else in the boat.  There is no hierarchy in that regard.

“The speed of the boat comes about from everybody paddling as one,” she says. “Everybody must hit the water with their paddles at exactly the same time.”

While the Dragonflies initially used the boat made available from Comox Rec they have, since 2007, had their own boat—a boat with a special legacy and of which the team members are very proud.

It came about when team member Monica Greenwood and her husband, Mel, donated the boat in memory of their son, Stephen, who had died in a car crash four years earlier. The boat is a BuK, which is built in Germany and is a crème-de-la-crème craft of the sort that has been used in many international competitions.

But, the Dragonflies boat is even more than that, Saunders says. The boat has been enhanced by the talents of local artist Robert Lundquist, who endeavored—after listening to the Greenwoods’ story of their son—to bring his spirit to life as represented by the boat.  Appropriately, the boat is called Stephen’s Spirit.

Team solidarity is of course everything, and aside from having the boat that they cherish so greatly, the Dragonflies deck themselves out in T-shirts that follow the design of the boat.

“With our team we knew we needed a good blend of personalities, and that’s what we have,” Saunders says. “We have 20 people plus a drummer.  Once we join up we make a definite commitment, but we know that we all have other things going on in our lives, and that has to be respected.”

During the season they practice twice a week for an hour and a quarter, and in the winter, come rain or come shine, or sleet and virtually everything but heavy winds, they practice once a week.

There is a definite process that must be learned and a participant’s skill can only improve with practice, she says.  The paddlers in a dragon boat face forward (unlike aft-facing seated rowers) and use a specific type of paddle, which is not connected to the craft in any way.  They paddle canoe-style with a very distinctive paddle type.  The leading paddlers set the pace for the team and it’s essential that all paddlers be synchronized.  Each paddler, Saunders says, should synchronize with the stroke or pacer on the opposite side of the boat.  That is, if you paddle starboard side, you take your pace from the paddler on the port side.  Meanwhile, the two pacers in the bow set the pace for the rest of the paddlers.

“We truly have to be a team,” Saunders says.  “There are no star performers, just a group of people literally pulling together.”

Currently their team quotient is good, Saunders says.  A number of new members have come out, which is good since five or six members left within the past year.  And, as always, they are seeking more male participation.  As far as age is concerned, there is no upper or lower limit, though participants should be physically mature due to the strength demands.

“Right now I believe we range in age from about 30 to 70 years,” she says.

This fastest growing of water sports on the globe is seconded only by outrigger paddling, which uses the same strokes, and the teams are often mutually supportive, says Saunders.

“The primary difference would be that outriggers are suited for long distances, whereas our greatest distance in competition is 500 metres,” she says.  “CORA (Canadian Outrigger Canoe Association) held a competition in Comox Lake last year, and our team supported theirs in that competition.”

What appeals to Saunders and many others in the sport is that it’s not encumbered by regulations limiting the involvement of its members.  As an example, she will shortly be going to Victoria to race with another team and she observes that the teams change from one race to the next.  At the same time, competition, such as the BC Seniors Games (Comox Valley and Campbell River, September 15-18) and festivals like Nautical Days in Comox bring out the apex of team spirit.

For the Seniors Games, Saunders says, she’ll be on a mixed team, along with seven other members of the Dragonflies.  She further notes that for competitions in other centres they do not, due to difficulty of transport, take their boat with them.  Which, she admits, is too bad in one respect, but the logistics have to be respected.

“It all truly stirs the spirit,” she says.  “I’m looking forward to Nautical Days and the Seniors Games in the early fall.  We’ll be there and loving it.”

For more information on the Comox Valley Dragonflies visit www.cvdragonflies.ca.

For breast cancer survivors who would like to be connected with Hope Afloat, go to www.hopeafloatcanada.ca.

Poor old Qu Yuan, neurologist
an ancient Chinese statesman (475-421 BC), doctor
was something of a hard-luck case during his own lifetime. Yet he left a legacy that is celebrated throughout much of the world today as the fastest growing water sport on the planet—dragon boat racing.

Qu’s connection goes like this: He had been banished from his state of Chu by a corrupt king.  Then he learned of the impending invasion of Chu by a neighbor state.  This was too much for him so he tethered himself to a rock in a river to commit ritual suicide as a protest against the invasion. The good people of the kingdom rushed into the water in their fishing boats to try to save Qu, no rx
but it was to no avail.  So, they beat drums and splashed water with their paddles to keep evil spirits from his body.

Ultimately Qu Yuan’s legacy in China ended up being commemorated century after century on an annual basis by boat races that take place on the anniversary of his death.  The boats are traditionally long and narrow canoe-style vessels decorated with carved heads and tails of dragons, which are held to be the rulers of the rivers and seas.

Eventually the dragon boats spread beyond the confines of China and the races have now annual events in some 40 countries.  And, as many Comox Valley residents—at least those that ever find themselves near local waters—know, dragon boating is very much a facet of the local scene.

In British Columbia, dragon boating is part of the legacy of Vancouver’s Expo ‘86.  At that event the Chinese delegation brought with them six teak dragon boats.  From that grew the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival, the first of its kind nationally, thanks to the efforts of David See Chai Lam and Milton Wong.  This was the first dragon boat race/festival outside of Asia, created as a showcase of Vancouver’s growing cultural diversity and to promote racial harmony and cross cultural understanding.

A decade later Dr. Don McKenzie of the University of BC, in conjunction with physiotherapist and breast cancer survivor Dr. Susan Harris, formed the first breast cancer survivor dragon boat team in Vancouver.  Their intention was to prove that upper body exercise has a large role in recovery from breast cancer and lymphedema because it can improve the range of motion, reverse muscle atrophy, stimulate the immune system and activate skeletal muscles.  The only criteria for becoming a member of a breast cancer survivor team is having had a history of breast cancer.

Since that time dragon boating has grown immensely in popularity, with breast cancer survivor teams being a part of all festivals. In the Comox Valley the breast cancer survivor team, and the first dragon boat group on the local scene was Hope Afloat, which was formed in 2001 in conjunction with the Comox Recreation Commission.

In the case of Hope Afloat a group of women in a support group were discussing full-time return to work after having completed their cancer treatments.  It was at that meeting the topic of dragon boat racing came up.  As it stood, the nearest option for getting involved in the sport was in Nanaimo.  This was hardly practical for women who were working.  As it turned out, four local women were involved with the mid-Island team. They were contacted and the wheels were set in motion.  Within a few months, thanks to the support of Valley businesses, service clubs and individual donations, enough funds were raised to purchase the Valley’s first dragon boat.

From that first purchase the concept of dragon boating took off in the Valley.  Hope Afloat gifted their boat to the Comox Recreation Commission, which agreed to make it available to other groups who were interested in getting into the sport.  The rest of the tale is, as they say, history.

There remains, however, says Christine Saunders, Comox Valley Dragonflies team manager, a widespread assumption that dragon boating is still confined to breast cancer survivors (though they remain integral to the sport).  Many teams, like the Dragonflies, are strictly recreational.

The Dragonflies team (the oldest in the Valley after Hope Afloat) was formed in 2002.  The Dragonflies compete in approximately four to five events through the racing season, and primarily compete as a mixed competitive team.  However, they have also raced in a number of women’s festivals through the years.  The Dragonflies are one of six teams in the Valley, including the original Hope Afloat team.

Going back to the beginning for the Dragonflies, and for Saunders, it all came about due to an ad placed by Comox Rec in which they asked if anybody was interested in a dragon boat, as the Hope Afloat boat was now available for other user groups.

“I phoned and then went to a meeting in January of 2002,” she says. “There were a good 40 people there and I became a member of the first team.  We had a 6-16, which is the standard dragon boat worldwide.”

Part of her personal motivation, Saunders says, was that she felt she needed to get involved in some sort of a sport, mainly because she needed the exercise and wanted to do something that appealed to her.  Since she was raised by the sea, she felt that something to do with the water would work for her.

“I’d never been particularly active in sports,” she says.  “I like to say I’m a great spectator, and when my kids were growing up and playing baseball or soccer I was always out there to cheer them on.  But, I wanted and needed something for me.”

Right from the beginning she found it to be a fine fit for her.  It was a good group of people to be with and the sport demanded team solidarity in that all must pull together.  People get tight with one another—figuratively and literally—in relatively short order.

“For us it’s basically recreational,” she says. “There is the competitive aspect and we have achieved a considerable degree of success, but essentially we go out to be on the water and to have fun.  One of our biggest challenges is to get more men involved.”

A further misconception about dragon boating (the first being that it is confined to breast cancer survivors) that Saunders would like to set straight is that it is not exclusively a female endeavor, but decidedly calls for gender mixed teams and they are, she says, always trying to attract men to the sport.

Many men, Saunders adds, believe that dragon boating is strictly a female involvement, and at a certain level females must predominate.  There are no exclusively male teams, but in any of the major competitions in which they have been involved, such as Victoria and Nanaimo, the biggest section is the mixed group.  And, of the 20 people on a team, at least eight must be female.

As for the physical aspects of dragon boating, Saunders describes it as “a wonderful sport.  It’s whole body exercise,” she says.  “While it creates certain demands on the novice it doesn’t take long to adjust to the stresses of the sport.”

She notes that Fitness Excellence in the Valley offers dragon boat training and that it’s a good idea to take that sort of training, especially in the winter, before the season begins.

“Winter is definitely a good time to get started,” she advises, as competition season isn’t the best time to learn, so it can be a bit disappointing for the newcomer since the others on the team are more advanced.

Part of the allure, Saunders says, is the sense of solidarity that comes about from the experience. Everybody must be able to rely on everyone else in the boat.  There is no hierarchy in that regard.

“The speed of the boat comes about from everybody paddling as one,” she says. “Everybody must hit the water with their paddles at exactly the same time.”

While the Dragonflies initially used the boat made available from Comox Rec they have, since 2007, had their own boat—a boat with a special legacy and of which the team members are very proud.

It came about when team member Monica Greenwood and her husband, Mel, donated the boat in memory of their son, Stephen, who had died in a car crash four years earlier. The boat is a BuK, which is built in Germany and is a crème-de-la-crème craft of the sort that has been used in many international competitions.

But, the Dragonflies boat is even more than that, Saunders says. The boat has been enhanced by the talents of local artist Robert Lundquist, who endeavored—after listening to the Greenwoods’ story of their son—to bring his spirit to life as represented by the boat.  Appropriately, the boat is called Stephen’s Spirit.

Team solidarity is of course everything, and aside from having the boat that they cherish so greatly, the Dragonflies deck themselves out in T-shirts that follow the design of the boat.

“With our team we knew we needed a good blend of personalities, and that’s what we have,” Saunders says. “We have 20 people plus a drummer.  Once we join up we make a definite commitment, but we know that we all have other things going on in our lives, and that has to be respected.”

During the season they practice twice a week for an hour and a quarter, and in the winter, come rain or come shine, or sleet and virtually everything but heavy winds, they practice once a week.

There is a definite process that must be learned and a participant’s skill can only improve with practice, she says.  The paddlers in a dragon boat face forward (unlike aft-facing seated rowers) and use a specific type of paddle, which is not connected to the craft in any way.  They paddle canoe-style with a very distinctive paddle type.  The leading paddlers set the pace for the team and it’s essential that all paddlers be synchronized.  Each paddler, Saunders says, should synchronize with the stroke or pacer on the opposite side of the boat.  That is, if you paddle starboard side, you take your pace from the paddler on the port side.  Meanwhile, the two pacers in the bow set the pace for the rest of the paddlers.

“We truly have to be a team,” Saunders says.  “There are no star performers, just a group of people literally pulling together.”

Currently their team quotient is good, Saunders says.  A number of new members have come out, which is good since five or six members left within the past year.  And, as always, they are seeking more male participation.  As far as age is concerned, there is no upper or lower limit, though participants should be physically mature due to the strength demands.

“Right now I believe we range in age from about 30 to 70 years,” she says.

This fastest growing of water sports on the globe is seconded only by outrigger paddling, which uses the same strokes, and the teams are often mutually supportive, says Saunders.

“The primary difference would be that outriggers are suited for long distances, whereas our greatest distance in competition is 500 metres,” she says.  “CORA (Canadian Outrigger Canoe Association) held a competition in Comox Lake last year, and our team supported theirs in that competition.”

What appeals to Saunders and many others in the sport is that it’s not encumbered by regulations limiting the involvement of its members.  As an example, she will shortly be going to Victoria to race with another team and she observes that the teams change from one race to the next.  At the same time, competition, such as the BC Seniors Games (Comox Valley and Campbell River, September 15-18) and festivals like Nautical Days in Comox bring out the apex of team spirit.

For the Seniors Games, Saunders says, she’ll be on a mixed team, along with seven other members of the Dragonflies.  She further notes that for competitions in other centres they do not, due to difficulty of transport, take their boat with them.  Which, she admits, is too bad in one respect, but the logistics have to be respected.

“It all truly stirs the spirit,” she says.  “I’m looking forward to Nautical Days and the Seniors Games in the early fall.  We’ll be there and loving it.”

For more information on the Comox Valley Dragonflies visit www.cvdragonflies.ca.

For breast cancer survivors who would like to be connected with Hope Afloat, go to www.hopeafloatcanada.ca.

The past is very much present in Cumberland—and a tangible expression of this intersection of the historic and the contemporary is the annual Miners’ Memorial Weekend.  Presented by the Cumberland and District Historical Society, health
this year’s 25th anniversary event on the weekend of June 18-19 commemorates the miners who worked, lived, and died in the mines at Cumberland as well as throughout the world.  By means of music, story, and ceremony, the event is a celebration of workers and their families.

In the quiet dimness of the Cumberland Museum, plans for the event are at full steam.  Museum board members Meaghan Cursons and Brian Charlton sift through boxes of archival material for a possible exhibit.  Joined by Anne Davis, president of the Courtenay, Campbell River and District Labor Council, the group looks through the old newspaper clippings, posters, and photographs of past events.

“This is the Miners’ Memorial Day Box!” says Cursons, pulling from it an old program with a photo of the Memorial Cairn from #6 Mine. “1986—that would have been the first event,” says Charlton, reading the date.  “Here are some of the press releases.  Who’s in that picture?” Cursons wonders. “Rosemary Brown, Wayne Bradley, is that Roger Crowther?” begins Davis, and Charlton completes her thought:  “They all look so young!”  Everyone laughs.

“Here’s Barney McGuire,” continues Charlton with one of the clippings.  “He was one of the initiators of the Miners’ Memorial event.  He was with the CAIMAW union—the ones who broke away from the international unions in the Canadian Independence Labor movement.”  Cursons wonders if he was the same McGuire that had left markers seen in museums across the province, with the famous labor slogan, “Don’t Mourn, Organize.”

“That’s a different guy—Barry McGuire!” says Brian Charlton. “It’s all the same family,” Davis adds with a laughs: “Brian is a McGuire!”

With his personal labor heritage, Brian Charlton is also very aware of the history of the Miners’ Memorial event.  “It actually started in Sudbury in 1984, that was the first one,” he says.  “I don’t know if they still do the Sudbury one, but Cumberland has kept up for 25 years now.”

“They aren’t in every mining community across Canada—Cumberland is very unique in that,” says Cursons.  “People are coming from unions across the Pacific Northwest and sometimes further afield—they make it their summer trip.  There’s groups of people that camp at Comox Lake, there’s groups of university students that have always attended, there’s the bus drivers in Victoria that actually get a city bus and make the trip every year—really interesting traditions of attendance that aren’t just local.  I think that’s why it’s such a big deal.”

The interest in the event has been increasing over the last several years.  “It comes from the nature of issues in the province,” Cursons says.  “That seems to make a difference—it goes hand in hand with general activism, and where we’re at in an election cycle, lots of reasons why people are more animated at different times.”

Adds Charlton:  “One of the reasons that Cumberland’s event has lasted so long is that it isn’t just the memorial ceremony at the cemetery.  There’s so much else going on, with ‘Songs of the Workers’ the night before, the pancake breakfast, the camping… One of the best things has been the Saturday night around the bonfire—one time there were at least 10 people with guitars.  Somebody even brought bagpipes!”

“It’s how I got my whole introduction to the labor activist community in the Comox Valley, and to the Cumberland Museum,” says Cursons.  “Both of those were 15 years ago.  The second year I was here, I ended up involved in Miners’ Memorial Day—I spoke and played music at ‘Songs for the Workers’.”

‘Songs for the Workers’ opens the Miners’ Memorial Weekend with a Pub Night on Friday, June 18 from 7 to 11pm at the Cumberland Cultural Centre, admission by donation.  “It’s a combination of scheduled performers and open mic—everyone is welcome,” says Cursons.  “There’ll be a combination of some traditional stuff and stuff you haven’t heard before. We have George Hewison playing, Doug Cox, Gordie Carter—we do a constant rotation of tunes.  We pass the hat and share the proceeds between the musicians and the event.”

Charlton in particular is looking forward to hearing songs from Gwyn Sproule.  “She does these traditional Geordie songs—English coal mining songs,” explains Cursons, adding that the event “goes as long as we can keep the energy going!”

The next morning the BCGEU hosts a pancake breakfast from 8-11am. “Again this is open to community, here at the OAP,” says Cursons.  “All the proceeds go to the museum.”  At 11am there will be a guided tour of the Cumberland Museum.  The Campbell River, Courtenay and District Labor Council, the Cumberland OAP and the Cumberland Chamber of Commerce are all supporting the event to benefit the museum’s programming, operations, and labor and mining history exhibits.

“At noon on Saturday, there’s a group who are going to walk to the cemetery—recreate the funeral walk from Ginger Goodwin’s funeral,” Cursons continues.  Ginger Goodwin was the well-known coalminer and labor organizer whose leadership of several strikes and outspoken opposition to the 1914-18 war brought him to the attention of authorities.  Despite his health problems, his conscription status was changed from ‘unfit’ to ‘fit for service in an overseas fighting unit’.  He went into hiding in the bush near Cumberland, with the help of townspeople, but was tracked down and shot by a hired private policeman on July 27, 1918.   His death sparked Canada’s first General Strike.

“There was a processional of people from Cumberland all the way to the graveyard—and there wasn’t a single dry eye,” says Cursons, quoting the reports of the time.  Anne Davis has researched the route described in Ruth Masters’ book of local history at the museum, and the group will try to recreate the same route for the procession on June 19.

The name Ginger Goodwin still elicits a strong response in the community.  “It’s interesting that he died in 1918, and he still provokes a lot of feeling,” says Charlton.  “He’s been dead for almost 100 years and we’re still battling it out because issues that were debated back then and fought about back then are still relevant today.”

Davis has a personal story of Ginger Goodwin’s influence.  “When I moved here in 1974, I was 19, and my then partner and I bought one of the old houses on Camp Road.  It had belonged to Jimmy Ellis, who had gone into care at that point,” she says.  “I went down one afternoon to meet him at the old folks home to just ask him some questions about the house and he sat me down and told me the story of Ginger Goodwin.

“As a kid, Jimmy had gone up to the lake with his father and was taking food up to those who were hiding out.  When he told me this story he had tears in his eyes, and it was tears of anger.  I grew up in Victoria and I had never heard of Ginger Goodwin but I got the message that something really important had happened here.  That was my very first introduction to labor history, and I’ve ended up being a labor activist for all of my adult life.  It was so important to Jimmy to pass that story on to the next person who was going to live in his house in Cumberland.  It had quite an impact.”

Adds Cursons:  “Something really important happened in Cumberland that connects to what all of our lives look like right now, and connects to struggles that are still going on.  That kind of thing never gets written down by the official establishment.  When you go to the archives, it’s only going to read a certain way if it’s a newspaper clipping from the mainstream press.  So the real story only lives because people have told it through stories and music—it doesn’t exist in the official record the way it needs to exist.”

The ceremony at the heart of Miners’ Memorial Weekend is the Graveside Vigil at the Cumberland cemetery at 1 pm on June 19.  “Miners’ Memorial Day for labor activists is a bit like getting back to your roots—that reminder of the struggles of the past,” says Davis.  “At the time Ginger Goodwin was killed, people were fighting for—and sometimes dying for—the eight-hour day, the two-day weekend, basic health and safety standards.  Because we’re not taught that history in school—the history of unions, of organizing—we have to go out and find it, and remind ourselves and others of our roots.  I think it’s a really important event for that, for connecting again, and remembering that the struggles we’re involved in today are sometimes not so different from what they were fighting for back then.”

Speakers at the cemetery will include labor leaders and historians.  “It’s an open mic, which can be interesting!” says Charlton, “because you get some fiery rhetoric—young Turks—like a lot of the Wobblies (the IWW – Industrial Workers of the World) and some of the other political groups.

“Marianne Bell, who used to be president of the Labor Council, is going to be speaking about women in Cumberland at the cemetery,” he adds.  “And one time there were some Chilean miners here, and they introduced their tradition of honoring people who had died in the last year—they would say the name, and everybody in the crowd would say ‘Presente’, meaning ‘Here’, which was quite a touching thing.  Another time when Roger Stonebank was researching the book that he did, he got in touch with some of Ginger Goodwin’s relatives in England.  They thought he was some kind of black sheep shot by the cops and Roger told them that there was actually a ceremony going on in Cumberland, BC for the last 20 years celebrating Ginger Goodwin—so they came up the next year.”

“It was very emotional the first year they came,” Davis recalls.  “They were quite tearful at the cemetery talking about him.  It blew them away that he was being honored.”

Adds Cursons:  “When we’re down at the cemetery we’re standing together and talking together, there’s music, and the act of doing ceremony and ritual—it’s a really neat blending of culture and politics, which strengthens both, which is why it’s such a powerful event.”

Davis agrees.  “I think that’s partly what draws people to come from Vancouver and Victoria too,” she says.

“The graveside part is really important to people, and because there’s a whole lot of activities over the whole weekend it’s worth coming the distance to be part of it.”

The ceremony consists of a “combination of music and speeches, and laying of the wreaths—bouquets this year,” says Cursons, noting that the memorial flowers are traditionally ordered and placed by unions, but any family, business or individual can order a commemorative tribute.

“We call out the different unions or individuals who want to lay a bouquet, and they come up and lay it at Ginger Goodwin’s grave,” says Charlton.  “We go down to Miners’ Row, for miners who don’t have marked graves, and lay some there.  And this year we’re also going to be laying some flowers for the women of Cumberland, the wives of the miners.  Then we’re planning a ceremony for 2:30 at the Japanese and Chinese cemeteries.”

Cursons recommends ordering the tribute bouquets before June 10 through the Cumberland Museum. “It’s also a fundraiser for the museum,” she says.  “But something we’ve discussed this year—talking about workers and workers’ rights—is that the international cut flower industry is devastating for women.  There is heavy pesticide use throughout the cut flower industry.  So this year we had a real serious conversation about where those flowers are coming from—we’re doing fair trade flowers for the bouquets from Comox Valley Flower Mart.

“It’s funny how you don’t necessarily connect the dots—especially something that symbolized love and mourning and respect—like roses,” she adds.  “You really need to think about who is producing roses, what is their wage like, what is their quality of life like, and how far are the flowers flying in jet planes—some really important questions.  So I hope that every year that we’re challenged by doing this right.”

At 3:30 pm on Saturday local historian Gwyn Sproule will lead a walking tour leaving from the museum, of the Cumberland mine sites.  Registration for the tour is not required; however advance tickets for $15 are necessary for the Miners’ Memorial Day Dinner at 6 pm.  “The big dinner is put on by the Cumberland Museum Board,” says Cursons.  “At that event Stephen Hume will be speaking, and Jim Sinclair.  There will be music and TheatreWorks is going to be doing a performance.”  Depending on numbers, the dinner will either be at the OAP or the CRI.  All food for the dinner is donated from local businesses, with proceeds going to the museum.

Music is threaded throughout the weekend.  “There’s music Friday night, music at the cemetery, music as part of our dinner,” Cursons says.  “Worker’s music is also folk music in its purest form.  It’s people’s music, songs of the workers—those have been sung for political reasons or for mourning or to set a pace to your labor.  And new verses show up, where some sort of relevant current event changes the lyric.  We may not be mining here anymore in Cumberland, but people all over the world are still doing really dangerous, horrendous work.  This last year has been a huge year for deaths in coal mining.”

“I think Miners’ Memorial Day is where people’s politics and their cultural expression line up— it’s not a dry political event.  It has a very political cultural component.  I like politics in our art and our craft!” Cursons says, acknowledging she also wrote a song that came out of Miners’ Memorial Day.

That thought further inspires the planning group.  “I think we’ve got enough songs now for a CD!” says Charlton with a laugh.  “As a fundraiser for the museum,” adds Davis.  “Brian’s got a line on pretty well every Ginger Goodwin song that’s been written!”  The idea catches on, with suggestions of songs to include: Cumberland Waltz by Wyckham Porteous, The Day They Shot Ginger Down by Gordon Carter, and songs by Joey Keithley, David Robics and Richard von Fuchs.

“There’s so many new people that live in Cumberland and in the Valley who don’t have a total connection to this history, so we’re working really hard this year on inviting the community as a whole to come out,” says Cursons.  “As part of that, we’re inviting other musicians who haven’t traditionally been involved in the event because we just want to hear workers music—it doesn’t have to be a particular union or labor song.  This event is totally relevant for all workers.  It’s going to be what we make it, as a community, for the next 25 years.”

Clearly Miners’ Memorial Weekend isn’t just a memorial caught in the past.  Cultural elements of the event are constantly being renewed, in a continual connection to contemporary issues.  The 25-year history of the memorial event itself is now part of the story of Cumberland as a community.

“We have an exhibit case that we want to get some of this material into,” says Cursons, placing the past event posters and flyers back into their folders.  “We want to keep everything intact and keep it safe, so people can see the progression of the event—this event is now part of our history.”

For more about the event visit: www.cumberlandmuseum.ca.